Chapter 7 Poise #2
Reltas seems to enjoy my inability to respond, his smirk widening, and his tone turning decidedly condescending.
“It was an easy trade for him,” he tells me, spinning the ring between his fingers.
“Freedom in exchange for the daughter who dethroned him? Barely even a loss. Anyway.” When the ring spins over his last finger, he flicks it with his thumb into my lap, and I stare at it as though he’s tossed a handful of mud onto my skirts.
“So sorry I couldn’t take the time to woo you properly, my dear, but we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other.
I’ll let you know when the wedding details are finalized. ”
And without any further discussion he, bafflingly, turns to go.
I stand quickly, the ring clattering to the ground at my feet as I scramble to put all this together.
“The brutal attack in the Outskirts,” I blurt.
“Was that you? Your magic? Was it all just a distraction so you could break into my prisons and free my prisoner?” The idea of it makes my insides feel hollow.
Reltas snaps his fingers and turns back around, like he’d forgotten about that part. “Oh, yes. It was. Did you like it?”
Amid the wings, I now feel talons. Scraping at the deepest parts of me. Behind my painted lips, I grit my teeth. “You killed dozens of my people. Do you know that? Forty-seven, to be specific. And all as a distraction?”
For a moment something passes over his eyes, but it’s gone before I can parse it. His gaze hardens as he takes a step back toward me. “Forty-seven, you say? A good start, I suppose. But nowhere near even.” His words are casual, but there’s a sudden coldness in his voice that gives me chills.
“What does that mean?”
He approaches the throne again slowly, his expression shuttering.
“Do you know how my magic works?” he asks, though he doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
“The limbs I raise can only come from real people. People who died within a set range of the place where the scroll is buried.” He leans toward me, one lip curling in a sneer, his face now uncomfortably close to mine.
“I wrote two hundred and twenty-six names on the scroll that was buried in what you call the Outskirts. Two hundred and twenty-six names of citizens from my realm who died in that field, at your father’s command.
And even that number is a fraction of what we lost. One field of many.
You’re worried about forty-seven? We lost thousands.
And I know all their names. I can’t stop knowing them.
Once I learn another, it burrows into my mind, just waiting to be called upon.
Waiting to surge up in vengeance for my cause. ”
My stomach lurches, but I don’t have Heart with me right now, so I can’t fully access the sorrow that I’m sure she’ll feel later. Instead it feels like bumping up against a void. A boundary I can’t quite cross.
I swallow and open my mouth to express condolences anyway.
To diplomatically remind him that my father’s actions are not my own, and to express how much despair that war has caused me as well.
To delicately suggest that we might start a new era together, one in which we can resolve disputes away from the battlefield.
But when his hard, hateful eyes lock on mine, I let my sympathies die on my lips.
“Why free him, then?” I ask, holding his gaze so I can study his response. “And why force me into a marriage? It’s obvious you despise us both, that you have no regard for anyone in my realm. This isn’t an alliance, so what is it?”
He pulls at the collar of his doublet, disinterested again, already turning away.
The anger that made him lash out has either burned up or been buried.
“It’s no use worrying about that. What does it matter to you what this marriage means to me?
All you need to know is that you can’t get out of it.
Your father’s word is binding. If you break it, it’s tantamount to breaking the entire Treaty.
You would incite war. Not just with my realm, but with all of them, per the terms we each signed.
And if you need any extra incentive than that, I’m happy to provide it.
” He glances back over his shoulder at me, his expression cool now.
“Do you remember the book your father had in his possession when I released him? Some volume from your Census?”
I nod hesitantly, dread creeping down the back of my neck.
He gives me a humorless smile. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for that. A very helpful and well-organized tome. If you recall, it includes an index of deaths, right down to location of demise.”
I feel the blood leech from my face as I realize what he’s saying.
He makes it clear anyway. “I’ve been studying. Getting to know your dead as intimately as I know my own. And now, should I so choose, I could lay waste to your entire realm.” He flicks one more glance at me before turning away. “I would love it if you gave me a reason to.”
He retreats, heading back toward the main doors. Done with me.
And I feel my composure cracking.
I can’t just let him leave. I’m not clever like Asset, I can’t reach him emotionally like Heart could, but I know I can’t let the conversation end with me so completely cornered.
If I want to avoid inciting a war, prevent my entire citizenry from suffering the same fate that the Outskirts did, then I need to start by stripping away the legal backing for his actions. I need to find my father and get him to take his promise back. Renegotiate. Something.
“Where is my father now?” I demand.
Reltas spins lazily but continues to walk backward, a disinterested smirk on his lips. “My future father-in-law?” he asks. “He’s cozied up at my place, of course.”
I fold my hands in front of me and swallow, glad that my father is at least in a known location.
I would not have enjoyed tracking him down.
“In that case,” I say, my tone reflexively yet robustly formal again, “I think it would be prudent for me to visit my future home before the wedding day, don’t you?
Would it suit you to receive me . . . tomorrow? ”
Reltas spreads his arms wide, uncaring. “Of course,” he says. “As my fiancée, you’d be welcome anytime.” I release a small breath of air, but then he continues, one brow arched. “Are you my fiancée, though? Because if so, I’d like to hear you say it.”
My skin prickles at the pleasure in his tone. How much he enjoys seeing me made small.
I don’t have a choice, though. I have to get to my father, and the only way to do that is to play along. For now.
Even so, the word is painful in my throat, and it takes me a minute to work it up to my lips. “Yes,” I say finally, and it comes out like a hiss between my teeth.
His smile turns dark at my assent and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Then put on the ring,” he says.
I take a breath.
He’s stopped walking now. He just stands, rooted and waiting. Wanting to watch me do it. And it chafes to give in, but I have to.
I have to.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I kneel.
I pick up the ring.
And I slide it onto my finger.
The cold metal makes me shiver. It feels like tightening handcuffs. Like one of Mara’s bracelets trapping all my magic inside me where it coils and snarls and waits, just beneath my skin. It makes me feel sick, beaten, defeated. Afraid.
But you’d never know it from my persistent, practiced expression. Calm as the surface of a lake.
The only thing that causes it to slip is when Reltas makes it to the other end of the throne room and swings the door wide.
To reveal Silver’s stricken face.